Tag: Mobile phones

Sabbatical.

I am going away for about ten days to the South of India to attend to some family functions and to escape the dust that is sure to be generated during the remodelling of our kitchen.

I will be accessing my mail etc on my tablet but am unlikely to be blogging except for the weekly LBC posts which I have already written and programmed to be posted on due dates. I find it difficult to write in my tablet or mobile phone due to the small keyboards. If however something interesting can be posted, I will access someone else’s computer with a proper keyboard and blog.

I will catch up will all comments and also all the blog posts of the bloggers that I regularly visit on my return.

So, please comment on the few posts that are likely to appear on my blog during the next couple of weeks.

Thank you.

Electronic Hickey.


“Having a naked picture of your significant other on your cellphone is an advertisement that you’re sexually active to a degree that gives you status. It’s an electronic hickey.”
RICK PETERS, a prosecuting attorney for Thurston County, Wash., discussing sexual texting by teenagers in his jurisdiction. To get more background, here is the news item from the NYT.

Please also read this additional story in the NYT.

Let us now cut to India and my city of residence Pune. Before I proceed further, please read this story in our local edition of the Times of India.

In the local case, the perverts are all from rural areas surrounding Pune. Most of them would have sold their agricultural lands for the relentless expansion of Pune, or would be from rural landless labour background. They would usually be making a daily wage through some manual labour or be auto-rickshaw drivers. They are under educated, come from traditional backgrounds where women are kept indoors and when they see an urban modern girl with a man, they go berserk. Not that such a background justifies their behaviour, but this is to give a picture of part of our changing society and norms and the kind of problems that the so called progress creates.

In all the three cases that I have posted here, the common thread is the very rapidly changing world around us and the relentless use of modern communication gadgets to create unprecedented behaviour patterns with disastrous results. The hand held small mobile phone with so many other applications now available has now become a potent weapon in the hands of unscrupulous elements of society. I see children forever talking on mobile phones and taking photographs of each other, all over the place. Some of them carry hand sets that are obviously top of the line smart phone models, that I cannot afford to purchase.

There is however an upside to these crimes, if we can call it that. The same technology enables the law to apprehend the perpetrators quickly! BUT, after the event and trauma experienced by children, yes the same children who flaunt their hand sets.

What are we doing to our children?

Listening.

Welcome to the Loose Bloggers’ Consortium, where every Friday, some of us post on the same topic. Today’s topic has been chosen by Grannymar.

“So when you are listening to somebody, completely, attentively, then you are listening not only to the words, but also to the feeling of what is being conveyed, to the whole of it, not part of it.”
– Jiddu Krishnamurti.

“We have two ears and one tongue so that we would listen more and talk less”
-Diogenes

All gurus advise that effective communication can only take place when there is effective listening. One question that I always raised when this was pointed out is – “how can effective communication take place between two people, if both insisted on listening and neither would say anything?” I have received some good answers but shall leave my readers to figure out how to answer this question.

I am considered to be a good listener. At the same time, I am also considered to be a good conversationalist. I suspect that is because I ask questions more than answer questions. I suppose that answers my own question.

Now a days, I am compelled to listen to many conversations in the most unlikely situations, thanks to the advent of the mobile phone. I hear people conveying amazing things while walking in our joggers’ park, totally oblivious to the others in the vicinity. I observed this same phenomenon at the hospital last week, when I had to wait for various things that a visit to a hospital entails. I over heard nurses, ward boys, and even doctors on the gadget, similarly engrossed and totally oblivious to the public round them. One cannot avoid this phenomenon anywhere. Since I do not like to listen to such conversations, I avoid using my mobile phone except in emergencies and if I do get calls when in public, I tell the callers that I shall them later and disconnect. May be I am just nuts!

Having had my rant about mobile phones, what will the world do without it? In India, it is already doing some amazing things, and it is predicted that some new business models are likely to be built around them. Just have a read at this.